■5°* 



v ... 














V ^ 















»°^ 




i» . • • 



++ **Trv 



t ^ 







^ ^ * is 







& 











>*",. 




• « ° 



»*% 






.a^ o * " • • *<» 




w 

.v^. 






• A y *2# - 






• 4? S^. «» ' 



0^ ^L 























«P-nK 




^^ 



^\ 








£ ^ 















4 






**<* 
^ 



.**• 




r <»» » 











^6" 




<**/* 
£* ^ 



'•Vi* <0 



















V 



J? *it '• • • 





A <* 



* ^ 



^ * 










"-\ c°-i*fe-> ^--^fe-% tf\tffc.% 




^At 



JOHN AND JONATHAN; 



OR, 



ENGLAND AND AMERICA 



A LECTURE BY 



ROBERT NOURSE, 



THIRD EDITION. 



WASHINGTON, D. c. 
Gray & Clarkson, Publishers 

] 8 8 5 . 






JOHN AND JONATHAN; 



OR, 



ENGLAND AND AMERICA 



A LECTURE BY 



ROBERT NOURSE, 



THIRD EDITION. 



lUA 



WASHINGTON, D. C. 
Gray & Clarkson, Publisher! 

1885. 






Entered according to Act of Congress, in the year 1885, by Bobiut Ncuese, in the office of ih» 

Librarian of Congress. 






JOHN AND JONATHAN; 

OR, 

ENGLAND AND AMERICA. 



Imagine before you two gentlemen — one with a broad rosy face, 
short curly chestnut hair, blue eyes, strong limbs, a determined 
appearance, and weighing at least two hundred pounds, that is John ; 
the other tall, spare, wiry, with angular features, a bright hazel eye, 
long thin hair, a tuft on his chin, and weighing one hundred and 
ten pounds, more or less, that is Jonathan. These are the same 
animal varied under different domestications. About two hundred 
years ago Jonathan left his friend John and took to the forest. From 
that clay to this he has been busy in clearing it for farms and roads 
and villages and cities, and has had no leisure in which to get fat. 
To lay flesh on his ribs has not yet become the supreme interest of 
his life. 

It has taken twelve hundred years in which to make John ; no won- 
der that he is so well filled out. Jonathan has been in making 
about a sixth of that time; he is, therefore, nothing more than a 
sketch — a man in outline. In John are four distinct families — the 
ancient Briton, the Anglo-Saxon, the Dane, and the Norman, there- 
fore his greatness and individuality. Considering the races that are 
mingling on these shores it is not at all unlikely but that Jonathan 
will be greater than John when he has had time to grow. At present 
he is nothing hut a lad, although he promises to be the greatest 
man on earth in past or present time. He will be a wonderful com- 
position. On this foundation of solid English there will be German, 
French, Scandinavian, Scotch, Negro, Indian, and Irish. I put the 
English first because it is scientifically and historically correct to do 
so. I put the Irish last because I did not want to make a row. They 



may quarrel if they will, and it seems as though, they will, pro- 
vided they do not get their quarrel into us or us into their quarrel. 
But what a man will this be, in whom there shall be the English 
sturdy character, German patience, love of home and music; French 
vivacity, Scandinavian endurance, Scotch shrewdness, Ethiopian elo- 
quence, a little of the blood of the noble red man, Chinese reverence 
for parents, living and dead, and Irish wit. If in the process of 
growth the infirmities of these races are sifted out there will be a 
type of man on these shores such as the world has dreamed of only, 
with a continent for his home, popular sovereignty for his govern- 
ment, and himself restored to that which his Maker designed him to 
be — the lord and sovereign of nature. 

Imagine before you two ladies — one in middle life with gray hair 
and rosy cheeks, very quietly and neatly dressed, able to walk a 
dozen miles a day, a hearty, handsome buxom dame, a real queen of 
a woman, that is Dame Brittania ; the other a most exquisite girl, 
saucy, pretty, free in her manners, strong, yea invincible, in her 
virtue; with dark hair, lustrous eyes, small hands, and delicate feet; 
she is able to hold her own among the princesses of Europe ; she can 
write a novel and paint a picture and teach a school and sing a song 
and harness a horse and row a boat and fire a rifle ; and she can also 
sew and bake and scrub and build a fire if she likes, which she gen- 
erally does not like, that is Miss Columbia. I know just such women 
in England and just such girls in America. All are not like them, 
but they are the type to which most approximate, and from which 
some degenerate. These are the other sex of John and Jonathan. 

Imagine two creatures before you — the noblest one of the forest, 
the grandest one of the air — the lion and the eagle. The one roars and 
the nations tremble ; the other soars, the heavens open to its flight ; 
the world looks on admiringly at its magnificence. 

It is of these two men, their counterparts in these two women, 
emblemed in the king of beasts and king of birds — in short, of 
the two greatest nations on earth, that I have undertaken to speak 
with on this present occcasion. 

• Although we have one origin and one history — for English his- 
tory is the beginning of ours, and ours the continuation of that — 
though there is much intercourse piratical and otherwise between 



us, yet there is a great deal of ignorance in England concerning 
America. It seems impossible to get into the mind of the average 
Englishman any idea of the size of this country. We don't know- 
it ourselves. Very few Americans know that the central city 
of the United States is San Francisco, and yet a reference to the 
map will convince you that it is just as many longitudinal degrees 
from San Francisco to the utmost western limit of our empire as it 
is from that city to New York. When we have surveyed a new ter- 
ritory and attempt to give a conceivable idea of its size to the public 
we are obliged to lay aside all such standards as miles, furlongs, 
leagues, and acres, and say it is so many times larger than all New 
England. Therefore we should not be surprised if, to make intelli- 
gible to the American, who is born to large things and expects to 
realize them, we have to take the oldest part of the continent and 
multiply it by five, six, seven, eight, nine, or ten, as the case may 
be. I say then we ought not to be surprised if the Englishman 
thinks we are deliberately lying when we tell the truth concerning 
spaces and distances in the United States. 

I feel sure that if I were to return to-night to a little town in 
the east of England, justly celebrated as the birthplace of two dis- 
tinguished men — Tom Paine and myself — I would not be long in 
my father's house before it would be known all over that his eldest 
son had returned from America. Within an hour a dozen dear 
old ladies would call on me to commiserate me for having been so 
unfortunate as to have lived a few years in America. To take one as 
a specimen of the rest she would look me over, heave a dozen heavy 
sighs at me, and begin her interrogations: "Pore boy, and so 
you've been to America, have ye?" I would acknowledge the soft 
impeachment. " Pore boy, and you have come back agin, hev ye?" 

I would reply in the affirmative. "Pore boy, aint it hot there?" 

II Yes, indeed, it is." " Ah, pore boy, aint it cold?" " Yes; so 
cold that you have had nothing like it." " Pore boy, aint ye made 
a rare old lot of money?" "I should say so. I have been a 
preacher in America for twelve years, and all preachers make money 
there." Then she would ask me what we ate, drank, and wore ; 
the kind of houses in which we lived, all leading to a question which 
reveals the sole object of her visit. " Don't you recollect my boy 
Tom?" " Oh, yes ; of course I do ; we went to school and played 



6 

cricket together. Pray, what has become of Tom?" "Well, 
you see, Tom got onsteady, and then he 'listed for a sodger, but he 
did not like it, and so he desarted and went to Ameriky. Oh, he 
often writes to me and sends me money, so I don't have to go to the 
house. Did you never see him ? I thought it would comfort me 
to know you had. Where do ye live?" "I live in Wisconsin." 
"Do ye? Well, Tom lives there somewhere." "Whereabouts? 
Have you his address ?" " Yes ; I brought it with me." And then 
the good mother would take it from her folded 'kerchief, for it tells 
her where Tom is, and hands it to me. It is just as I expected, for I 
read, "Thomas Smith, New Orleans, La." I hand it back to her 
and say, " Mrs. Smith, Tom does not live anywhere near me. I live 
in Wisconsin, where we have nine months winter, and three months 
late in the fall. He lives in New Orleans, where they have twelve 
months summer, four months flood, three months yellow fever, and 
a number of infamous lotteries. It is true that we both live on the 
same river, but he is two thousand miles further south." Then 
she would rise in her anger and say : " Thanke ye, sir ; I'll bid ye 
good evening, sir. You had better go back to Ameriky with yere 
big yarns where ye belong, and not try to impose on an old lady 
like me." She would leave the house in high dudgeon. My revered 
father would then take me to task and remonstrate with me for never 
having restrained my imagination and having made him enemies 
among his neighbors in his old age. I would beg his pardon, for to 
insist on the sober truth would be to offend him. If the next day 1 
met an educated English gentleman, I could not tell him what every 
American schoolboy knows without bringing an incredulous smile 
to his face. He would know exactly the topography of ancient 
Greece and Eome, but whether Chicago is in Pennsylvania or Pennsyl- 
vania in Chicago he would not know, and I am afraid he would not care. 
Now, it is not that they desire to disbelieve the simple and familiar 
statements, it is they cannot comprehend them. The horizon of the 
world is the extent of their practical observation. Thousands upon 
thousands have never left the village of their birth, slept under any but 
one roof, or in any but one bed. Hence, when an Englishman comes 
to America his chief concern is to bring his bed with him, and hun- 
dreds of them do so. I remember a lad with whom I went to school, 
who, when he was eighteen, left his home for three long weeks, dur- 



ing which time he was never more than thirty miles distant. On 
his return he told us that " he had seen a great deal of the world, 
and had been exposed to many temptations." A clergyman who at- 
tended the Pan-Presbyterian synod, held a year or two ago in Phila- 
delphia, informed me that he was domiciled with two reverend D. D.'s 
from the north of England. One of these had brought a parcel to be 
delivered to a former parishioner in Missouri. One day dinner was 
delayed, and after the hostess had made her apologies, he said to my 
friend : " Get your hat and show me the way, we can deliver that 
parcel before dinner." The same brother possesses an article written 
within the past six months and published in a provincial paper, in 
which there is a description of one of those terrible " Western 
cyclones " which raged *in"New York. The writer goes on to say 
" that at the time a lady andjher five children were walking in Cen- 
tral Park. So mighty was this engine of destruction that it lifted 
them from their feet 'and landed them in the Mississippi, which 
ran near by. A few days afterward their bodies were discovered 
a few miles down the river at a place called Chicago, where, accord- 
ing to American custom, they were embalmed, and from thence 
were carried for burial by the bereaved husband and disconsolate 
father to the family lot in a beautiful cemetery just outside the 
lovely village of Dakota." 

You may think these exaggerations, but when English papers an- 
nounce that Mr. Cleveland Ohio is President of the United States, 
and Chicago the most enterprising and most rapidly-growing State 
of the Union, you will believe almost anything you hear on the sub- 
ject. 

When, a few weeks ago, 1 was lecturing in Northern Wisconsin, 
an Englishman who listened to these statements came to me and 
said, li Ay, lad, but thou didst tell the truth to-night. I went 'ome 
two years ago, and a told 'em aboot how big this country were, and 
how long it took to go to one place and the other, and ma brother-in- 
law he lay back and laughed ; and a said, ' Bill, what art a laugh- 
ing at?' and he said, ' I'm a laughing to see what a big liar you've 
got to be since you have been'in Ameriky.' " 

On the other hand there is some ignorance in some parts of Amer- 
ica concerning England. If John cannot conceive of the vastness of 



8 

this country, Jonathan cannot imagine the greatness of that. How 
that little island lying off the coast of Europe can hold and maintain 
so many people is a problem that would greatly puzzle Jonathan 
if he would hut give himself time to think about it. It is a 
standing joke that when an. American goes to England he never 
ventures out after dark, for he is afraid of falling off. He probably 
would but for the number of people there to hold him on. They 
always hang on to an American over there — so much so that the 
majority of foreigners who complain to the detectives of Scotland 
Yard that they have been outwitted are Americans. On that little 
island there are half as many people as with us. We expect one 
hundred millions in the year nineteen hundred. We double our 
population every twenty-five years. At this rate how long do you . 
think it will take us to be as thickly populated as England? It will 
take us thirteen hundred years, and then we will number one bil- 
lion three hundred and twenty million souls. 

On that little island is a city the epitome and wonder of the world. 
Its inhabitants number five millions, it adds to its population sev- 
enty-five thousand persons annually — enough not only to make a 
large city in Europe, but a respectable start for one of our enormous 
Territories in America. One hundred and sixty thousand children 
are born into it yearly. 

It has 568 railway stations. Through one junction alone (Clap- 
ham Junction) there pass 13*74 trains a day, about two a minute. 
The railways of the United States last year carried 250.000,000 pas- 
sengers, but in this city there is a road that crawls underground like 
a worm, coming onto the surface now and then like a worm, drain- 
ing the streets of London, and it carried 110,000,000 passengers,, 
and that is but one railway out of many. 

Stand with me on the steps of the Mansion House and from thence 
twelve miles out in every direction the postman goes calling at every 
house on every street, it may be, every hour of the day, from six in 
the morning till twelve o'clock at night. Divide the city proper 
into four sections — north, south, east and west ; take the east sec- 
tion and we find the first daily delivery of letters averages a million. 

Six hundred thousand persons daily enter and leave the compara- 
tively small area of 632 acres of the city proper. Put its streets end 
to end and we have a continuous line of houses sufficient to go round 



9 

the world, enough left over to make a street on both banks of the 
Mississippi from St. Paul to New Orleans, with several miles rushing 
into the gulf. 

In London there are more Roman Catholics than in Rome, more 
Jews than in Palestine, more Scotchmen than in Aberdeen, more 
Welshmen than in Cardiff, more Irishmen than in Belfast, and 
during the excursion season more Yankees than in Connecticut. 

We are all interested in land and each of us expect to take up some. 
Suppose we take up a quarter section in London, what would we have 
to pay for it? A short time ago a piece of land sold in Lombard 
street at the rate of $10,000,000 per acre, about $3,000,000 more than, 
we paid for all Alaska — that's the place for a tree claim. 

I do not know a city more truly interesting to an intelligent 
American than this. It seems to belong to us, for here Shakespeare 
wrote some and acted others of his incomparable dramas. Here 
Milton was born, sang of liberty, died and sleeps. Here Benjamin 
Franklin lodged and wrote of practical philosophy. Here Byron was 
born. Here Turner made the canvas live. Here Handel sang a 
grander song than the morning stars of heaven. Here Coleridge 
went to school. Here the gentle Charles Lamb wrote charming 
essays, toiled at a government desk, and made immortal jokes. Here 
Goldsmith wrote the Vicar of Wakefield, and Defoe, Robinson Crusoe. 
Here Dickens met the Wellers and Mrs. Nickleby and Mr. Manti- 
nelli, who has gone to be a body. Here Thackeray scorched snobbery. 
Here George Eliot wrote philosophy. Here Tom Carlyle growled at 
everybody and everything. Here martyrs died for you. Here they 
suffered imprisonment and tortures for the principles on which we 
live in America. We cannot analyze the influences within and the 
powers surrounding our lives, the joys that have come into them 
from knowledge, art, religion, song, and liberty, without seeing that 
we owe more to London than to any city this side the Atlantic. The 
names I have mentioned are familiar, they are household words ; the 
spirits they represent rule us from their urns — let us not forget that 
their urns are over there. 

Not only is there ignorance between the two countries, but prejudice. 
John isa prejudiced old gentleman, and Mrs. John is a self-opinionated 
old lady. Dear old soul, she can scarcely forgive her beautiful 



10 

-daughter for marrying the primeval forest and setting up house- 
keeping for herself. At the time she made a great fuss about it and 
did all that an over-anxious mother could to break off the match, 
"but she could not. The smart young lady slapped the old lady's face, 
upset her tea-pot in Boston Harbor, returned her soldiers with her 
•compliments, and declined to be wedded to a European prince. The 
dear old woman was shocked and prophesied all sorts of evil things. 
The temper of the younger lady has become calm and we have been 
getting on grandly ever since. England likes it and yet she does 
not. She is proud of being the mother of such a nation. She is a 
little chagrined that the nation is not still tied to her apron strings, 
which, thank G-od, it is not. 

In consequence of the feeling created by our past affairs, by her 
institutions and by her commercial interest, England took the wrong 
side during our late civil war. No, let me correct myself and say 
that England took the rigid side. Now just look at that Yankee 
staring ferociously at me for my heresy. Just listen to him as he 
says, u Neow, stranger, I calkerlate you are considerable mixed there, 
aint you ? Didn't England send money to the South ?" Yes. " Did 
she not send supplies to the South ?' ' Yes. " Had she not something 
to do with the ' Alabama' matter?" Yes, yes. " Wall, then, stranger, 
did not England take the wrong side?" No, let me explain. It is 
undoubtedly true that the aristocrats of England had more sympathy 
with the Southern than with the Northern cause, they cared more for 
the master than the slave ; the cotton brokers and manufacturers and 
merchants thought their craft in danger, and, like too many of those 
in this country, they cared more for that than for men. I believe 
that many of these had the wool pulled over their eyes so that they 
were blinded to the fact that the war involved the manumission of 
the slave. But let that pass, for the aristocrats of England are no 
more England than the monopolists of America are America. Where 
were the people of England, then ? They were in their churches and 
chapels praying to the Lord of hosts for his blessing on the Northern 
arms. The people's preachers hurled red hot "anathemas at 
those who had put their money into Southern bonds, or who had 
seemed to give their country to the oppression of slaves. They became 
prophetic and said the Northern cause would win, and it did-; that the 
money invested in Southern bonds would sink into Tophet, and it has. 



11 

The people filled the largest halls of the kingdom, and when the halls 
could not contain them they went to the market places and the village 
greens, and gave sympathetic attention to Beecher aud Thompson 
and John Bright and other friends of America and humanity, and 
therefore I say that beyond a question England, that is, the best of 
English brain and heart, was on the right side during our late terrible 
conflict. 

England did wrong, perhaps we can never forget it. It would 
not be amiss to forgive it. She atoned for her sin. She covered the 
wound she made with a $15,000,000 bill. The plaster was too large 
for the hurt. We could not use quite half of it. Several millions 
remain unused. No one has a claim upon it. We are ashamed 
to send it back. I expect to go to Congress soon, and then I have 
resolved to bring; in a bill which shall authorize the Government to 
spend it in machines that shall sen'd Mormonism where we haVe sent 
slavery — out of existence. 

Since then the prejudice has lost some of its strength. England 
admires the wonderful resurrection that has followed the depression 
incident to the war. English capitalists invest in our bonds and 
buy up our lands. Princess Louise has been our neighbor. She has 
trusted us with some of her great men for lecturing, acting, preach- 
ing, and teaching. She helped us celebrate our centennial. She 
came to Yorktown. Lowell's literary merits secured for him the 
Lord Rectorship of St. Andrews. The Queen has entertained Gen- 
eral Grant. Longfellow's memory is perpetuated in Westminster 
Abbey. America's poet gave some matchless words to England's 
baronet. He wedded them to an equally matchless melody, and 
now two nations, who best know the worth of home, sing Home, Sweet 
Home. A cable takes her hand and ours ; soon we shall be on 
speaking terms with each other. When this nation was in mourn- 
ing, and all civilization stood still as we marched with muffled drums 
to the grave, it was the wreath of England's noble Queen that was 
most conspicuous on the coffin of the martyred Garfield. 

Notwithstanding all this there yet remains some — incredible as it 
may seem — prejudice against that refined and elegant gentleman, 
the American hog ; they would have none of it if they could help it, 
but you see they can't help it. So John has to swallow his preju- 
dices with our pork. It is our hog or none. 



12 

An Englishman is prejudiced against anything new. He lives in 
the past. He believes in precedent and relies on the tested. Then 
living under a monarchy, he questions the superiority of a republic. 
Specimens of American people, whom he has seen, and with whom 
he has dealt, have not been our best — their mental abilities exceeded 
their moral qualities. American sympathy for Ireland, which if 
rightly known is nothing but a bid for the Irish vote, is not pleasant. 
A civil war denounced by the church of the Irish, true Irish patriots, 
and all right-minded people, except some American politicians — this 
war, with its diabolical plots hatched in America and maintained by 
our money, is not provocative of the best of feeling — it does not 
allay the prejudice. 

And is there none on this side ? A man cannot live many years 
among the American people and escape it. Perhaps this is as it 
should be, at any rate it seems natural, for when we have not fought 
among ourselves our fighting has been against the British Per- 
haps if we were not as British as we are we would never fight at all. 
This is written into our life, our history ; our children read it, our 
brothers who fought for the preservation of the Union are living epis- 
tles full of it. One a short time ago said "that he hoped the Arabs of 
the Soudan would whip the British, for they were fighting his bat- 
tles." Certain articles which we find in our newspapers,, certain do- 
ings in the halls of Congress, certain speeches from the lips of our public 
men, certain societies in our midst, certain infernal machines made 
here for the sole purpose of destroying English men and buildings, 
certain threatenings of revenge from a foreign people among our 
people, whose spirit and principle are antagonistic to the republic, 
who are our internal enemies, show that here within this people there 
is prejudice very deep and malignant. It will be a sorry day when 
John and Jonathan cease to be friends. Time will remove the ig- 
norance and prejudice on both sides. Let England alone in her 
trouble with Ireland. We don't understand it. There are faults 
on both sides. England has done wrong and England will do right. 
She has tried to do right, but every attempt has been met by cold- 
blooded murder, by villainous crime. Let England alone in her trou- 
ble with Ireland, it will be time enough for us to interfere with Irish 
affairs when we have an Irish trouble of our own. When we have 
washed the filth of Mormonism from our skirts, when we have left 



13 

off oppressing, robbing, and murdering the Indian, then, perhaps, 
it will be our duty to settle England's affairs with Ireland, but not 
till then. 

With the hope of contributing something toward maintaining the 
very best of feeling between these two great nations, I shall show 
that America is indebted to England for some blessings which she 
could not have obtained from any other country. Has England 
done anything for America ? Yes, as much as the Old Testament 
dispensation did for the New ; as much as a mother can do for her 
child. England made America possible. It may be said that if Eng- 
land had not done what she has some other nation would, but I shall 
show you that no other nation could. 

England gave us our language. In this we are one, notwithstand- 
ing contrary opinions. Correspondents write home and tell us that 
they are frequently asked to speak a little American so that they may 
judge of the quality of the language, and are astonished when they 
are told that we, too, speak English. I have been complimented on 
speaking our language remarkably well for a foreigner. This is a 
fortune, for if it had not been English it would have been Indian. 
Therefore, all the foreigners who are coming here to live are coming 
to read, write and speak English. It is a most wonderful vehicle of 
thought. It is the Shakespeare of speech. It takes into itself the 
choicest words of other tongues, naturalizes and uses them. It tells 
the tale of love with the felicity of French. It speaks philosophy as well 
as German. It reveals religion like Hebrew. It polishes like Greek. 
It is as stately as Latin. It is destined to be the universal tongue. 
Eich as it is we have improved it. We have added to its vocabulary 
such beautiful words as highfalutin, shenannagin and whangdoodle, 
besides teaching the British how to pronounce their words. The 
principle of caste is so intense that, while the ignorant mispronounce 
words, the aristocrats mispronounce them too, because they will not 
be like the learned. Go among the dissenters and hear an educated 
man read the familiar text, "He that hath ears to hear let him 
hear," and he will read it much as an American does; but go to 
church and hear a churchman announce it as his text and all that you 
will make out will be, " He that harth yaws to yaw let him yaw." 

England gave us our common law. It guides 'our courts, it rules 



14 

our country. Blackstoue is at the basis of our legal philosophy and 
practice. Our courts of justice are after the English rather than the 
continental pattern. Judge, jury, methods of procedure, are English 
with this exception, that the process of law is slower there than here 
and surer there than here. If a man gets into law there he will 
probably be in his grave a century before the case reaches a final 
decision, except in criminal cases, when both man and case will 
reach a final decision with a dispatch and certainty that would make 
Jonathan open his eyes and cause him to feel that it would be 
healthier for him to leave the country if he were the criminal. No 
namby-pamby sentiment comes between the court and prisoner there. 
The felon's dock is not decked with beautiful flowers there. The 
people don't hanker after the autographs of murderers there. Rebels 
are not pardoned just before election so that they may outvote honest 
men there. The Queen, the aristocracy, the army, the church and 
people unite in maintaining that of which we have sometimes heard 
and too seldom seen — the majesty of law. 

England gave us our literature. Nearly all our public libraries 
are English. Nearly all the books of this country are of English 
authorship. There is hardly a publishing house in America that 
does not consider itself morally bound to steal a book from England 
and publish it. Our shelves bend beneath the weight of the 
Encyclopedia Brittanica, the Metropolitan, Chambers', the works of 
Macaulay, Hume, Smollet, Gribbon, Froude, Lecky, Dickens, Trol- 
lope, George Eliot, Thackeray, Bulwer, and a host of others. The 
Seaside, the Lovell, and the Franklin Square libraries are chiefly 
reprints of English works. We are not old enough to be a writing 
people, but we are old enough and wise enough to be a reading peo- 
ple. Where would have gone the delightful hours we have spent 
with these great authors, the information they gave, the philosophy 
of affairs we have, the culture and refinement resulting from their 
acquaintance, if England had not poured this literature into our life? 

England gave us the locomotive. We frequently brag of our 
rapid progress compared with the slower growth of European powers. 
Our material and intellectual progress is so great that our loudest 
boastings are commendably modest ; but if England had not given 
us the iron horse of civilization, this could not have been done. We 
built States in quicker time than they built churches, and it is due 
somewhat to the locomotive which England gave. 



15 

England gave us religion. This is her greatest and best. Re- 
ligion is the soul of a people. Give me a man's religion and I 
will give you the man. Give me the man and I will tell you his 
religion. Considering that the only religion indigenous to American 
soil is Mormonism, it is a blessing indeed that, with other gifts, Eng- 
land added this. 

Our Christianity came by way of England in such a form that the 
foundations of this republic were laid upon it, with such a spirit that 
the republic has been maintained. 

This is the home of all sects. Each one is garrisoned by the sol- 
diers of liberty. None are persecuted, not even free-lovers or infi- 
dels. Such phenomena are known in no other nation in the world, 
and this is in consequence of the form of Christianity England gave 
us. And what was that? you ask. Calvinism ! Has Calvinism done 
any good in the world? you ask. Indeed it has. It has made re- 
publics ; it obtained by the prayers and blood of its children that lib- 
erty in which all other Christians live. The first time I gave this lec- 
ture a reporter was present. What do you think he said in his next 
issue? He said I was a fool and that none but a fool would make 
such assertions. I did not mind it, for I had been called a fool be- 
fore, but lest any other reporter should say the same thing I feel it 
my duty to say that there is a fool named Macaulay and one named 
Froucle and one named Bancroft and one named Motley and one 
named Buckle, who especially calls attention to the fact that all 
the modern republics that have stood any fair amount of time were 
established by Calvinists — Switzerland, Holland, and America! 
The first in order owes its existence to the truth and spirit of John 
Calvin himself. Here are the facts : Macaulay attempts the philos- 
ophy of them. " When," he says, " Calvin laid hold of the doc- 
trine of the sovereignty of God 'he placed his foot on the neck of 
kings;' " and now we have 50,000,000 with their feet on the neck of 
kings, acknowledging no sovereign but the Almighty One. Buckle 
explains the matter by saying that its creed appeals to the intellect, 
that the worship in its churches has been simple and bare and had 
little attraction for the sensuous, and that the churches that have 
appealed most to the senses have been without exception intolerant 
and tyrannical. 

America was nothing until England gave us her men with this 



16 

religion — the grim old Puritan, the persecuted Pilgrim. The Indian 
liad been here for centuries but the forest remained. The Spaniards 
had rifled our mines to fill the coffers of European courts. The Jes- 
uit fathers had done some noble work by their piety and self-denial, 
but made nothing permanent. The cavalier had settled in Virginia 
and the Dutch in New York, and yet this great continent was asleep 
until the Puritan came; and when he came he was like the angel of 
the resurrection morning, and now behold the new heavens and the 
new earth. 

Since then England has continued to send us men. At a fair esti- 
mate she has contributed between four and five millions to the popu- 
lation of this country since the year 1815. They have not all been 
Calvinists or Christians, but they have made excellent American 
citizens. If you will search the lists of newspapers, magazines and 
reviews published in this land, you will find them devoted to the 
German and French and others, but how many will you find in the 
interest of the English-born American citizen ? Not one! You can- 
not say that of any other people in our midst. You have heard of 
men of other nationalities keeping the holidays of their birth-nation, 
and in order to do it most effectually carrying the flag of that nation 
before the Stars and Stripes — sometimes furled beneath it ; but you 
never heard of an English society doing that. You have heard of 
Irish- Americans and German-Americans, but have you heard of 
English-Americans? Our politicians shout themselves hoarse for 
the Irish vote and the German vote, but did you ever hear of a poli- 
tician raising his voice to a whisper for the English vote? You 
never did, for this very good reason : " There is no such thing in all 
America." When we withdrew our allegiance from the Queen of 
England we gave it to the people of the United States. If I may be 
allowed to speak for the rest I will say that we thank God that it 
was our good fortune to have been born in England and our equally 
good fortune to have become citizens of this great Republic. Such 
terms as German or Irish Americans ought to be buried forever, and 
the only flag that should be unfurled in America is the Stars and 
Stripes. 

Just lately England has sent us a new type of human. The most 
conspicuous thing about him is his dress. He wears a very ghort 
coat, very tight pantaloons, a very high collar, a very big necktie, 



17 

very thick-soled one-toed boots, a cane, an eye-glass, and a bull dog. 
We call him a dude, ye know. Last fall I met one of these crea- 
tures in New York, and he, learning that I was of English origin, 
expressed his desire to learn a little about dear old England, ye 
know. I told him to put any question he liked, ye know. 'Ah, 
yes," he said; "do you come from any of the first families, ye 
know?" I replied, "From the very first, ye know." " Had your 
family a coat-of-arms, ye know?" I said, ''Yes, several; there 
were a number of us, all of us had arms, and thank God we 
had coats to cover them, ye know." He looked surprised, and 
asked, " How far my family went back, ye know," and I said, "To 
Adam, ye know." Then he said, " Blast it," and left me, ye know. 
One of these dudes became acquainted with an American girl, and 
insisted on going home with her from church. Proceeding, he felt 
dudey, and said, "What would you do if you were land I were 
you?" "Well," she said, "if I were you I would throw away that 
vile cigarette, cut up my cane for firewood, wear my watch-chain 
underneath my vest, and stay at home at night and pray for brains." 
We had better send him back with the pauper and sparrow. We 
have no use for them in this busy country. We have dudes enough 
of our own ; for all ornamental purposes the Yankee dude 'ill do. 

England has given us the Puritan to lay the foundations of the 
nation, the citizens to sustain it, the dude to amuse it, and now she 
is sending another kind of her men. 

Out West is a young lady engaged to Tom Smith. Her father 
becomes suddenly rich, and says to her, "Why don't you and Tom 
get married?" "Oh, pa! I cannot marry Thomas; I cannot marry 
any of the horrid American boys. I must have a title. I want to 
marry an English lord." "All right, by all means ; how much 
will he cost?" 

At Baden-Baden is an English lord. He dare not go back to 
England, for the money lenders would get him; he dare not go out 
except on Sunday, or the sheriff would take him. He sits down and 
looks at his seedy coat, feels of his empty pocket and stomach, and 
says: " I have no money, no credit, no education, no character, but 
I have a title. How many men are there in America with maids 
and money to spare, and I perish with hunger. I will arise and go 
to America;" and so he borrows the money and starts steerage. 



18 

The cable announces that my Lord Empty Skull is crossing the 
ocean in the "Good Samaritan." Paw is sent to New York to meet 
him. The ship steams into port; my Lord Empty Skull lands. 
Paw accosts him: "Are you my Lord Empty Skull?" "lam." 
"Do you want an heiress?" "I do. How much will you give 
with her?" The price is arranged ; they go West ; there is a big 
wedding. In the house there is music and dancing, and Tom stands 
outside with a shotgun. He takes his bride to England and intro- 
duces her to his mother, the dowager Duchess of Nowhere, his sis- 
ters, the Lady Betty, the Lady Susan, and the Lady Maria. They 
learn that " paw " made his money in lumber, at which they turn 
up their aristocratic noses. Then he procures his bride a London 
lodging and leaves her, while he goes on the continent to spend 
her money with harlots in riotous living. I do not mean to say 
that all the English aristocrats are like that, for some of them 
are indeed noblemen. But this is no fancy sketch — it is a page of 
actual experience ; it is likely to be repeated. If an E nglish lord 
comes in search of a wife he is likely to be like that, only more so. 
Young ladies, beware! Be careful and patient. If you must have 
an Englishman, wait patiently and without murmuring, and you 
may get a preacher. 

England has not only given us these men, but a market. In 1882 
and 1883 our total exports were $805,000,000— $420,000,000 of it 
went to England, or 55 per cent, of it. Now what could America 
do without that market? She took $100,000,000 worth of wheat and 
flour ; $400,000,000 of corn, and $150,000,000 worth of cotton. 
Besides she bought $33,000,000 worth of pork; $12,000,000 of 
cheese ; $7,000,000 of lard, and $7,000,000 of petroleum. Some 
one may ask, but how can England do without this supply ? I 
don't know, but I think she can do without us better than we can 
without her. She imported from her colonies and foreign countries 
goods to the amount of $2,065,098,400 or two and two-thirds bil- 
lions ; to which America contributed $420,000,000, which is a small 
amount. But what would America do without it? We cannot eat it. 
No other people can buy it. We send, you see, $420,000,000 to Eng- 
land, and only $60,000,000 to our next best customer — Germany. 
All the world besides cannot take it. England won't starve. She 
has vast colonies, and is developing them. And yet we are doing 



19 

■our best to get rid of it. Our market is decreasing. In 1880 and 
1881 we sent each year about $560,000,000. Our trade is less than 
it was since 1878. There must be a cause for this. England in con- 
sequence of a series of bad harvests since 1879 has been import- 
ing more ; then it was $1,500,000,000, now it is $2,400,000,000, 
and we are sending $120,000,000 less. How is this? It ought not 
to be so. How is it that India threatens to supply all Europe with 
wheat within ten years ; that our wheat is a drug on the English 
market at 90 cents a bushel? It is due, first, to the development of 
her colonies ; second, to a lack of reciprocity of trade, and third, to 
a decided prejudice against our dynamite. John has had enough of 
it. It is of no use to make a highway of the Mississippi to the 
ocean, if, when we get to the other side, there is no market for our 
goods. Think of it, ye business men, and demand that our best 
customer be let alone. When John buys pork, he expects pork and 
not bomb shells. 

So you see England has done something for us. Other nations 
liave contributed their men and manners. All have done something 
good, but none have done so much or so well as dear old England. 

Let me turn the tables and show what America has done for Eng- 
land. It is within the limits of truth to say that no country has 
done or is doing so much good to England as America. Her colonies 
do not exert nearly so much influence upon her. She is a stranger 
to her next door neighbor, France ; by law, custom, language she 
is a foreigner to every other European nation. But in consequence 
of the sj)lendid ocean steamships that almost bridge the Atlantic 
there is a great deal of intercourse between us. I don't know 
whether England will ever be a republic, for the French republic 
is but an experiment, and this is so costly in some particulars that 
possibly she will not become a republic so long as she can support a 
monarchy. Still, though England may not in the near future alter 
the form of her government yet we have already influenced her 
to alter the spirit of it. England is republicanized, so that it is the 
opinion of some that the best republic on earth is the monarchy in 
England. 

We have convinced the people of England that it is the birth-right 
of every citizen of repute to have such a part in the government as to 



20 

choose his law-makers. At the beginning of this century compara- 
tively few enjoyed this privilege. In 1832 the suffrage was extended. 
In 1867 and 1868 another extension took place; aud now, under 
the influence of the education act, others are qualified ; and Glad- 
stone has brought in a bill which admits 2,000,000 more to the elec- 
toral franchise. The time is not far distant when the people will 
elect their sovereign. 

We have shown the people of England that a people can be happy, 
prosperous, and Christian without a union of church and state. 
Evils flow from that unhappy and unnatural alliance from which we 
have been free. Can you imagine the members of Congress arrang- 
ing a table of Scripture lessons, deciding the length of morning and 
evening prayer, levying a tax upon all the people to maintain the 
churches of a few ? Can you imagine them appointing officers of these 
churches and denying citizens the right to civic office because they 
were not of this sect? And yet the English parliament, composed 
of Churchmen, Non-conformists, Catholics, Unitarians, Quakers, 
Jews, and Infidels, has been often engaged in just such work. 

Can you imagine a man being tabooed in society because he does 
not happen to be of your religious persuasion ? Yet, that it is not 
only a frequent occurrence in England, but its very spirit. 

Can you imagine the public graveyards, the common property of 
the people, being closed against a portion; or, when opened to all,. 
being divided so that one neighbor will lie here and another there? 
It is beyond our comprehension. 

Now England is looking to this country and asking if, under the 
voluntary system, one in every five is a member of an evangelical 
church, if every church is free, if no man is tabooed for his religious 
convictions, if families are united in life and in death are undi- 
vided, why cannot it be so here? And her people are saying it shall 
be, for America has demonstrated that it can be. 

America gave to England the idea and then the courage to pro- 
mote popular education. Till within the past twenty-five years the 
people were left in ignorance and it was thought best to keep them so. 
Educate the people and you make them dangerous, they said. Hereyou 
can see the difference between a monarchy and a republic. Educate 
the people and you destroy the monarchy, they cry ; educate the peo- 
ple and you preserve the republic, say we. But now education is 



21 

practically unlimited ; there is a highway from the lowest gutter to 
the loftiest prize of the most ancient university. When educational 
reform was agitated America was quoted. America gave the inspir- 
ation and became the example. The children of England are edu- 
cated to-day because we educated the children of America. 

We have given back some literature, some which, considering our 
juvenility, we have no reason to be ashamed of. They have Ban- 
croft, Hawthorne, Prescott, Motley, Emerson, Lowell, Longfellow, 
Whittier, Mrs. Stowe and others. Our monthly magazines are revo- 
lutionizing their periodical literature, while the American Classics, 
Artemus Ward, and Innocents Abroad, and others, are read with as 
much avidity there as here. 

We have given to England the idea of the confederation of all 
her colonies and possessions, so that the United Kingdom shall no 
longer comprehend the islands of England and Ireland, but encircle 
all the people who live within the folds of the British flag. The 
proposition has been made by Australia, and is being kindly enter- 
tained, that in every colonial possession there shall be a local 
parliament for local affairs. Besides this there shall be held once in 
four or five years, as the case may be, a pan-parliament for the dis- 
position of imperial matters. Now, when we consider that in ten 
years the dream may be realized, and again that England rules 
160,000 colonial subjects in Europe ; 6,000,000 in America ; 2,500,000 
in Africa ; 3,000,000 in Australia, and over 200,000,000 in Asia— I 
sa} r when we see these 250,000,000 represented in a parliament, and 
men shall note its words and convert its deeds into unparalleled his- 
tory, when having done that they shall think of the idea from which 
the event grew, and shall trace the path of its exodus and search for 
its genesis, it will be found in America ; for this is our State assem- 
blies and our Congress transplanted to English soil. When the 
thought shall have grown, so that it embraces the world in a parlia- 
ment of peace, then it will be seen that our fathers planted it in this 
soil with their prayers, defended it with their blood, and that our 
mothers fostered it with their tears. The world is welcome to it. 
We have no patent on it. England may not know it, but Jona- 
than is providing John a home for his old age. 

Then, not to be too boastful, we have given old England the tele- 
graph, the steamboat, the phonograph, (indeed a number of fuuny- 



22 

graphs,) the electric light, the sewing machine, farm machinery, 
some organs, a machine for nearly everything, patent medicines,, 
warranted to cure every disease in this or any other world, (which 
will kill every time for sure,) and, in anticipation of the results, some 
coffins. This is the greatest stroke of American enterprise that I 
know. Just as soon as the people of England were inveigled into* 
taking our pain killers and soothing syrups and sarsaparillas another 
firm, or what is more probable, a combination of these firms, com- 
menced a business in burial caskets. I understand that it is flour- 
ishing, at which we are none of us very much surprised. 

In taking so many things from England, there are some things- 
we ought to be thankful we did not take. Just now some of our 
people are having Anglo-mania pretty bad ; they think everything 
American bad, and everything English good. They even suggest 
that it would be well for us to have English distinctions aud titles. 
To do this we must have an English government, and it is desired 
because it would be cheaper. Is it ? Let us see. The Queen has ar* 
annual allowance of $1,925,000 for the support of her household,, 
and the honor and dignity of the crown of Great Britain and Ireland. 
Besides this she has the revenues of the Duchy of Lancaster, which 
in 1882 amounted to $482,130. And yet with this $2,407,130 she is 
unable to spare any of it for her children ; therefore, the Prince of 
Wales has an annual allowance of $200,000, besides the revenues of 
the Duchy of Cornwall, which in 1882 amounted to over $525,000 r 
and yet with this $725,000 he is unable to keep out of debt, and 
therefore lest his wife should be short of pocket money the Parlia- 
ment kindly grants her $50,000 a year, (the exact amount I allow 
my wife.) This is by no means all. The Duke of Edinboro' ha* 
1,000; the Duke of Connaught, $100,000 ; Princess Christian, 
1,000 ; Princess Louise, $30,000 ; Duchess of Cambridge, $30,000 ; 
the Grand Duchess of Mecklenburg, $15,000 ; the Princess of Teck, 
$30,000, and the Duke of Cambridge, $60,000. Here is S3,500,000> 
for royalty, and we have not got at the government yet. Now comes 
Gladstone with $100,000 ; the Lord Chancellor with $100,000 ; the 
Chancellor of the Exchequer with $50,000, and so on through the 
Cabinet, each one drawing salaries from $100,000 to $S,000. Now, 
when we think of this enormous expenditure, just think of what we 
will have to pay if we are untrue to the simple life of the republic, 



23 

untrue to the religion of our fathers, and use our material resources 
to corrupt politics, or enervate society, and become through luxury 
and greed so weak and vile that we shall have to be ruled by a 
monarch. 

What a blessing it is that we have never sent the "Mayflower" back 
for an army. We have no visible use for the invisible one we have. 
Now, England has a large and distinguished army. It ought to be, for 
it costs her $60,000,000 a year ; it numbers 200,000 men. America is 
supposed to have an army which in time of peace cannot exceed 25,000 
and it costs America $4,000,000. If it were as large as that of England 
it would cost the country $320,000,000 annually. Every soldier costs 
America $16,000 per year and the private draws $13 per month and 
his rations. It seems that there is something wrong. There may 
not be. Perhaps all our soldiers are brigadier-generals on full pay. 
This is the point : if we had the English army and the English spirit 
the country would be bankrupt. 

It may or may not be a blessing that we did not take the English 
aristocracy. Here we have no caste. One man is as good as another 
and a great deal better. But an aristocracy there will be. When we 
have one, let it be truly American, men of noble lives, notwithstand- 
ing birth, blood or color — the nobility of man. 

Still, I think we are losers. We lose the sense of respect. It is 
very hard for us on State occasions to say the Hon. James Blaine or 
the Hon. John Logan. We very much prefer to say Jim Blaine and 
Black Jack. 

We ought to be thankful that we did not bring the law of entail. 
A large part of England is held by a few land-holders. This is also 
the case with Ireland. 1 am often asked why the English landlords 
do not sell out in Ireland. They cannot. The estates are entailed. 
Some apprehension has been felt lest rich men, who have invested their 
money in enormous tracts of land, should become by that fact our 
dangerous classes. Those who so think forget that these men will 
die, and we have numerous lawyers who will split up the estates into 
smaller sections, and so we shall escape that curse of Europe — the 
law of entail. 

These are a few things we did not take ; there remain some yet 
which it were well for us to adopt. 

We ought to get an English post-office. Imagine one. It is 



24 

not nearly so imposing a building as we would build for the same 
amount of business. The work done in it is its chief commendation. 
There I mail my letters and cash my orders as here. I want to send a 
telegram and it is the government office which will send my messages 
twelve words for twelve cents, or if I am too sick to go to the office 
I write my message at home, my servant drops it into a letter box at 
the corner of the street on which I live, and in fifteen minutes it is 
on its way to the end of the earth. My children desire to deposit their 
savings, and behold, it is a savings bank affording government security 
and small interest for all sumsabove a shilling, with opportunities to 
deposit a sum so small as a penny. I want to insure my life at a 
small premium and it is a government insurance and annuity office 
.which take small risks for poor people at a small weekly sum. But 
I have a parcel to send home, a beautiful silk dress for my wife ; it 
is seven feet long and weighs seven pounds, I take it to the post office 
put seven stamps on it, for this is the people's express office. That 
is the kind of office we want over here. The Government would then 
exist for the people. When shall we reach our ideal — a government 
of the people, by the people, and for the people, insteo.d of the govern- 
ment we have, of monopolists, by monopolists, and for monopolists? 
When ? Just as soon as we are humble enough to learn a little more 
from old England. 

We ought to adopt their civil-service principles. Theirs are the 
best in the world ; ours are the very worst. I say nothing against 
the men who are filling civil offices ; I am speaking against the bad 
principle of putting a man into office whose chief qualification is 
that he has been useful to a political party. In England a man 
must be qualified. There no man fills an office because he is a 
political partisan, nor put out because the party he opposes happens 
to come into power. In youth he is examined. He must be free 
from disease; have no bad habits; be of good moral character. 
Then his mental abilities will be tested. He must be a good scholar. 
Then he has to wait for an opening strictly in his turn. An opening 
occurs. He receives his appointment according to his grade. He 
is sworn to serve his Queen and country and uphold the constitu- 
tion ; then working like a man, keeping his character, he is pro- 
moted, as opportunity occurs. He will not be pushed ahead of any 
one else, no matter if he be the son of a peer or a peasant. Strictly 



25 

in the line of succession he will go up. But he must hegin at the 
bottom. Then having done his duty for a number of years he is not 
sent adrift to beg his bread, but pensioned with enough to keep him 
in comfort to the day of his death. This is well for the servant you 
may think, but is it well for the country ? Is it well that men 
should be taken from the farm or store, with no special fitness for 
office ? Would you take them into your banks ? Is it well for the 
country that men fill office, to draw the salary and make all they can 
besides, to be turned out as soon as they have learned the business, so 
that the serfs of the other party may do the same thing? I trow 
not. "What think ye? Should the struggle of parties be the ac- 
quisition of the office or the benefit of the people? Ought office be 
rewards for service ? And ought the men who in office serve the 
country to be taxed to support a party ? 

We should follow England and adopt the principle of free trade. 
I would not mention this if I thought it could be construed into a 
political purpose. As I don't know and as nobody else knows which 
party desires free trade, or if any, I shall escape such an imputation. 
I can, without an argument, give you the reasons that weigh with 
me for urging this. I go into a music store and inquire the price 
of an organ. " One hundred and fifty dollars, sir." That organ is 
sold for $50 in England. I go into another store and inquire the 
price of a watch. " One hundred and twenty-five dollars, sir." 
It is exported to England and sold for $30. I go into another and 
inquire the price of a sewing-machine. I am asked $66. It is ex- 
ported to England and sold for $15. What I mean by free trade is 
that you and I purchase American goods at the same price asked for 
them in England, less the cost of exportation. 

We might with advantage import their excellent police. It is 
very effective, and yet the policeman is not allowed to carry firearms 
or interfere with the personal liberty of the citizen. Cases of police- 
men being arrested and punished for excess in discharge of duty are 
by no means scarce. Such a thing was never heard of in this coun- 
try. A " bobby " is a standing joke at the circuses and panto- 
mimes. People do not joke with the police here, they grease them. 
There they are not paid for being hand and glove with the law- 
breakers of a city. I have no hesitancy in saying that the chief dif- 
ficulty in sweeping our cities of their moral filth is the police. These 
men should protect the good, not the evil. 



26 

We ought also to get their responsible cabinet. Ours is responsi- 
ble to no one. The English cabinet sits in parliament on govern- 
ment nights and is ready to answer questions concerning any depart- 
ment of the government. 

There are many other things we might get to our advantage. Their 
healthful open fires; their family life; their veneration for the past; 
their simple comforts ; their outdoor recreations ; their manly sports ; 
their moral ideals ; the sacred right of person ; their liberty of pri- 
vate opinion, and their reverence for sacred things. I do wish we 
had more of that . Some years ago I was in a little town out West 
and attended a series of protracted meetings and assisted in them. I 
had noticed several evenings a very beautiful young lady, and I ven- 
tured to speak with her. I said, " My friend, are you a Christian?" 
Now, what do you think she said ? If I had put that question to a 
young lady in England she would probably have said, " I humbly 
hope I am," but this one said, "You bet your bottom dollar I am, 
young man, and don't you forget it." I never did and I don't 
think I ever will. 

We need to lay hold of the principle that made England great ; 
you may think her greatness decaying. There may seem to be a limit 
to her material prosperity. She is accused of losing her glory because 
she will not interfere with other people's affairs after the fashion of 
a hundred years ago. But she is not decaying. She is changing 
from the sterner to the gentler virtues. But if she should perish to- 
morrow, if "the tight little isfand" should be dynamited by Ameri- 
can machines hurled by Irish malignity, or merged beneath the 
ocean, a very noble story would be written by a hundred pens, and 
a century hence told by eloquent lips into hundreds of thousands of 
eager ears ; that there was once a little island lying off the coast of 
Europe that governed a seventh of the habitable globe ; that she was 
mistress of the high seas ; that she had subjects of every color and 
in every clime ; that the sun never set on her dominions ; that she 
was the mother of nations ; of her this people was born ; her land 
was consecrated to liberty, so that the moment a slave placed his foot 
upon it his shackles broke, and there the cradle of religious liberty was 
rocked. Her people were many of them poor and vicious, but lying 
in them were traits of character that shone like seams of gold in the 
blackness of the mine. Some of her people were haughty, intensely 



27 

prejudiced, and jet these held the same traits that shone amid the vices 
of the others. From these came scholars of world-wide fame, orators 
of greatest influence, statesmen the envy of the world, poets of the 
sweetest song, and heroes of history. She gave to all the world an 
enormous beneficent literature. When men had lost faith in their 
prophets and gods they swore by her. And now, if you will seek 
the secret of her strength and glory, you will not find it in the land, 
for that was not especially fertile ; nor in its clime, for it was thick- 
ened with fog ; nor in its government, for that was by no means 
ideal ; but you will find it in its character, its belief in right, its 
preference of truth and honor to wealth or even knowledge. That 
is the tale future generations would tell. England's faults would 
not be forgotten but might serve to give beauty to the picture, as 
clouds add beauty to the sky. I can imagine a father telling this- 
tale to his son, and as he tells it, before the imagination of the child,. 
England, purified and personified, would rise from the lashing foam 
of the western seas an angel against the pure blue of the sky, not to- 
be worshiped but to breathe into his soul, "It is not wealth or 
knowledge, but it is righteousness that exalteth a nation." 

I by no means say that England is faultless, but she is tied to us 
by so many cords — by history, by religion, by race, by language r 
law, literature — that notwithstanding her sins we ought to love her. 
She fights the same traffic in drink, she distributes the same Bible,, 
and with us is endeavoring to spread the gospel of the grace of God 
all over the world. She has, therefore, a claim to our regard that no 
other nation has. Least of all should we give her wounds. 

At the beginning of this century an English lady (I use the word 
in the English sense) had the misfortune to lose her husband in her 
early wedded life. He left her with a little boy, to whom she was 
devotedly attached. She lovingly called him my bonnie Charlie. 
Unfortunately for her she did what too many English ladies do — in- 
dulged in wine. It conquered her, and strange, according to our 
theories, and yet not at all strange according to observation, the 
child of her sober love became the object of her drunken hate. So 
brutal became her treatment of him that her friends, the executors of 
her husband's will, were obliged to separate them. Just at that time 
they started for Australia. It was thought better to take the child 
with them. When she discovered that her child had gone she was 



28 

like a bear bereaved of her cubs. She was uncontrollable, and went 
on drinking more and more, and fell from the lofty position of an 
English lady to an abondoned woman of the pavement. Ultimately 
she committed a crime, for which she was sent to Australia, then the 
home of British convicts. 

Meanwhile the son grew, and became a wise and godly youth. 
In early manhood he attained the position of an Australian judge. 
One day there was brought into his court a degraded, bloated, blear- 
eyed woman, to answer to the capital charge. The case was pre- 
sented to the court, the judge instructed the jury to bring in a verdict 
of guilty. They retired, and in a few minutes returned with the 
fatal word guilty upon their lips. 

The judge proceeded to pass sentence. Before the black cap was 
placed upon his head he asked the prisoner whether she had any- 
thing to say why sentence should not be passed upon her. She 
lifted her bleared eyes to him and said : " May it please your honor, you 
see before you a degraded, abandoned woman. I have not long to 
live. The sentence will in a few moments fall from your lips. In a 
few days I shall expiate my crime upon the scaffold. But, your 
honor, it was not always so with me. I was once a good woman, as 
honorable and pure as your own mother, your honor, but in early 
life I lost my husband, my child, and my God. My husband died 
and left me with my bonnie Charlie; I took to drink to drown my 
sorrow. I had only one comfort — my bonnie Charlie, and they took 
him from me. I heard they had taken him to Australia. I was 
sinking, sinking, sinking, and I sunk to crime that they might send 
me here where he was. I have sought him for years, hoping that I 
might appeal to his love and lean on him for redemption, but I cannot 
find him, I cannot find him. Oh ! if your honor ever meet a man whom 
his mother called my bonnie Charlie, tell him that I loved him, and 
though I die a sinner I loved him as his mother." The judge 
quivered with excitement, he retired to his room, in a few moments he 
sent a note to the jury, saying : " Gentlemen, that prisoner may be 
guilty, but I cannot sentence her, for she is my mother." Oh! ye 
men with English names, for ye wear them; of English blood, for 
it is your very life ; with your history written in English Bibles, 
and your ancestors in England's graves, if that judge could not as a 
man condemn that degraded woman because she was his mother, 



29 

can you assault or permit an assault to be made in your name upon 
your noble mother — dear old England? 

What does England think of us? England's ignorance of us is so 
dense and pitiable that she thinks all manner of absurd and foolish 
things concerning us. English ladies think we are making a kind 
of a crazy quilt ; one day they will lie beneath it, Some English 
writers say we are taking in the refuse of all nations and out of 
this making a kind of Bologna sausage. English philosophers and 
statesmen think we are putting up another tower of Babel. Already 
the top is heavy and swaying in the winds. It threatens to fall. 
Out of the ruins they will build a more permanent structure. 
But it is no crazy quilt, it is no Bologna sausage, it is no second 
edition of the tower of Babel. We may tell England that the 
Almighty is building America. He is attempting something on a 
larger and grander scale than He ever attempted before, and He has 
better material with which to work, too. He made the first man of 
clay. He made other nations of a few families ; but of every nation, 
people, and tongue He is making on this continent the man for His 
own millenial glory. 

I have an idea which I like to put in a figure, that the Lord is 
building an organ, every nation, people and tongue among us a 
voice built into it. The discordances among us are nothing but the 
tuning and adjustment of the instrument. 

We send our thoughts on to the twentieth century. The o-oddess of 
music descends and sits before a magnificent bank of keys, each row 
a nation. Her hands are on the first, and " Britons never shall be 
slaves" is played ; they descend to the next, and we listen to the 
plaintive strains of "Scots wlia ha where Wallace bled;" to the 
next, and "Patrick's day in the morning " enlivens us; they are 
laid on the next, and we march to the "Marseillaise;" to the 
next, and we are on "The Watch on the Rhine;" they fall to 
the next, and our feet skip to the Scandinavian wedding marches ■ 
once more, and " Down by the Suwanee River " steals with its deli- 
cious pathos into our souls. And so on through every row until the 
last is reached, and then drawing the stop that opens the whole of 
the mighty instrument she plays a strain that brings 600,000,000 
people to their feet— 600,000,000 of free, happy . educated, sober, godly 
people to their feet. Not a serf among them, but sovereigns each of 



30 

them ; none cursed by labor, but all of them blessed by it. Not au 
Englishman, German, Irishman, Scandinavian, Indian, Negro, Chi- 
nese, or foreigner among them, but all of them Americans. And as 
the goddess rouses them by her most skillful touch and inspiring 
melody these 600,000,000 Americans rise, and in richest, sweetest, 
loudest voice pour forth their praise, and chant — 

My country ! "lis of thee, 
Sweet land of liberty, 
Of thee we sing. 



REV. ROBERT NOURSE 

cepared to make a few engagements to deliver his popular 

Lectures, 



yohn a7id Jonathan!" 

" Blighted Women ! ' 



" The Blessed Ctcrse ! ' 



OURIISO THE SEASON OF 1885-'0. 

Address— REV. ROBERT NOURSE, 

The T , Hh>ei , na.cle, Washington, D. O. 



PUBLIC OPINION. 

lev. Dr. J. H. Vincent, of Chatauqua, says : " It is a great success, full of sense 
1 fun." 

it. Rev. Bishop Fallows says : " It is a graphic and eloquent production, deliv- 
(1 with ease and marked elocutionary power, and one of the very best lectures 
given to the American public." 

'resident Merrill, of Ripon College, writes : " It more nearly approaches my idea 
a worthy oratory than anything else I have heard in several years." 

!ev. A. E. Dunning, of Boston, says : " He eclipses Talmage." 

'he "Janesville Gazette " declares that his lecture is the best heard in that city 
eight years, and compares him with Beecher. 

'he Hon. John Edgar, of Rochester, Minnesota, says : " Nourse is a platform 
lius. He handles his subject and his audience as a master." 

>r. M. M. G. Dana, of St. Paul, writes : " Mr. Nourse has a genius for lectur- 
; he is humorous, easy in delivery, a tine speaker, and puts his audience at 
:e en rapport with himself and his subject." 

>. writer in The Sauk Co. (Wis.) "Democrat" affirms that, '.'.He is a man of re- 
rkable, almost phenomenal, power," and that ''after listening to him for two 
irs the audience was not only sorry to have him stop but requested him to re- 
n and repeat it." which he did to a tremendous house. 

Lev. Dr. C. H. Richards wrote a friend about it and said : "'Robert Nourse's 
>hn and Jonathan ' was both wise and wittv. racily put and admirably deliv- 

a." 

Jter lecturing at the great Summer Assembly at Chatauqua, the Associated 
ss telegraphed all oyer the. country ■: "The address of Robert Nonrseoii 'John 
[ Jonathan,' at 2 P. M. to-day was versatile, sharp and witty to the last degree. 
tin and again was the great audience convulsed with laughter." 

"he correspondent of "'The Christian at Work" put into the columns of that 
>er the following passage : " The most brilliant and witty lecture at Chatauqua 
s far was delivered by Robert Nourse on 'John and Jonathan.' This'gentle- 
ii carried his audience with a vim and dash which were delightful." , 

in Evansville paper says: -"He appears to be talking more because he likes to 
n for the money he is to receive." 



NEW AND IMPORTANT ANNOUNCEMENT. 



THE 



$m 



fip ftf mmv 




JTL 

mm m wm 



From the Earliest Antiquity to the Year 1770 A. D. 

BY 

WILLIAM ALEXANDER, M. D, 

TO WHICH IS ADDED 

Voluminous notes from eminent authorities and additional chapters, 
bringing the work down to the present time, together with a 

BIOGRAPHICAL INDEX 

Of the celebrated women of the world in all ages, ranks and countries, 

BY 

KEY. ROBERT NOURSE, 

WASHINGTON, D. C. 

ILLUSTRATED BY TWENTY-FOUR PORTRAITS OF NOTED WOMEN. 

In two volumes. Royal octavo, pp. 600. 

I»ixl>li6liecl l>y GKAY «fc CL^RItSOIV, 

339 Pennsylvania Aven ue, Washington, D. < . 



•y Messrs. Gray & Clarkson beg to announce that the above work will be sold by 
subscription and will be ready early in the fall. They solicit correspondence with 
experienced and reliable canvassers. As no work of the kind has been published for 
more than a Century, and never in America, and as at the present time there seems 
to be grea demand for such a history, canvassers will see that they can have no 
competition for this very valuable and saleable book. 



U 2d 




^\ -.w«* /\ '$m : ** v ^ -jSK-' /% ^ 








.' s."**.. . 



\/ 











W 






V^ .»^rL'* <% 4?^ •!••• *> V S ,1 













-v 



## A> ***£&>» y\-^it.V /.c^% 




• • * ■ " *^" 



*w 



v N »^L% ci 




jp*. 



^0« 




^V 



vv 






^\ 



4 v -A • • • A w ^A * ' * 4* 



^^ 






*> j. • « « 

„ *<Jk 






85 °^. 



- • . . w 

BOOKfilNCXNC 1 \ ^ A** ** 






wsy% -.«• /% w /% -•) 



